


What To Expect When You're Expecting A Soulmate

by WakeupSoon



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:46:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25115626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WakeupSoon/pseuds/WakeupSoon
Summary: "Some people - not all people, just some - are born with marks on them. Soulmarks, they’re called. The first words that the one who will become the most important being to you will utter in your presence. Written on your body. In their handwriting."the figayda soulmark au nobody asked for but i wrote anyway
Relationships: Ayda Aguefort/Figueroth Faeth
Comments: 14
Kudos: 143





	What To Expect When You're Expecting A Soulmate

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first fic i've published in a very long time because, frankly, this is what 2020 has done to me. 
> 
> soulmark aus are my favourite and i just think this fandom needed at least one. especially first words spoken soulmarks when you're given the GEM of a first meeting these guys have. 
> 
> we've been blessed

Some people - not _all_ people, just some - are born with marks on them. _Soulmarks_ , they’re called. The first words that the one who will become the most important being to you will utter in your presence. Written on your body. In their handwriting. 

In nearly 160 years, Ayda Aguefort has never had words. At least, no previous iterations of her have ever left reference to having had words in their notes. Ayda thinks this seems like something too important to skip, and has therefore assumed she is the first version of herself who will find _their person_. It’s exciting. It’s also terrifying. 

She would definitely prefer it if that person was not going to mention her father, but she knows this is something she cannot change. Her father, who none of the versions of her she has notes from has ever known beyond a name. Her father, who she has never met, and presumes she never will.

Ayda finds herself staring at her words in the mirror every few months. They curl on her shoulder blade, in the gap underneath where her wings meet her body and there are no feathers. She has to contort herself to get the angle right, which can be bothersome, but sometimes she just needs to see them. To wonder about who is coming, and what could possibly lead them to say what they’re going to say to her. 

_Guys I think this is the creature Arthur Aguefort made for me._

It’s the same orange as her runes but in a gentler script. She’s looked over tomes trying to find the same one elsewhere, in case it belongs to an immortal scholar. Alas, if so her library does not possess their work. 

She’s forced herself to look at them long and hard enough that they no longer make her upset, just intrigued. There are so many possibilities. Although, sometimes, some of those do make her angry. 

She tries not to think about it too hard. 

* * *

For a long time, Compass Points only holds one book purely on the topic of soulmates. Ayda finds it at the age of six in the philosophy section, lodged between books on dialectical materialism and solipsism. It’s the most precious thing in her life for the next few days as she memorises every word of it, even the ones she doesn’t understand. 

It takes her a while to show it to Garthy. She curls up in their lap in front of the fire in their rooms at the Gold Gardens like she does most nights - but this time she’s holding ‘A Brief History of Soulmates’ to her chest, not ‘The Tabaxi, The Sorcerer, and The Cupboard’ like they’ve been reading together recently. 

“What’s that lovey?” They ask in that way they always do, with their full attention and genuine care. A silent promise that they will do their best to answer _all_ of Ayda’s questions (and they know there will be many). 

She opens it at the first bookmark she’s added. They’ve got a long night ahead of them. 

It’s five years before the next book appears in the drop off zone of the library, and Ayda is still yet to meet another soulbearer (she hates that term - everybody has a soul, regardless of having a soulmark - but the book uses it, so so does she). Her only source of knowledge on the topic has been the one book she’s read cover-to-cover 127 times by her own calculation, and she has so desperately been wanting a comparison. 

Ayda reads ‘THEM. Vol 2’ in 64 minutes, and quickly decides to never read it again afterwards. ‘A Brief History of Soulmates’ may have offered little explanation she could understand, but it at least told her the basics. From what she can gather ‘THEM. Vol 2’ is more for after you’ve already met your soulmate. It upsets her more than she cares to admit. 

After Garthy reads it they offer to burn it for her. They have severe issues with some of the concepts in it and encourage her to, when the time comes, use “open communication rather than manipulation” to bond with her soulmate. 

She immediately sets the book alight at the dining table as they talk.

The morning of her next birthday, Garthy presents her with two more books, “For you,” they assure, “Not the library, sweetheart. Just for you. I’ve read them already. I trust them.” Ayda immediately bursts into fiery tears and is blessed by Garthy's forethought of making them both fireproof beforehand. 

She reads ‘What To Expect When You’re Expecting A Soulmate’ first. The title appeals immediately, as most of her frustrations so far with ‘A Brief History of Soulmates’ have lain in the fact that, whilst it tells her about lots of different variations of soulmate partners and sets, it tends to gloss over the specifics. 

For instance: there are rituals. Ones of pure instinct. At the beginning, when the world will stop and minds will merge and the soul will learn to see through the hazy clouds surrounding it with clarity. In the middle, when life will settle and somehow you will always be able to feel the others through the connection. In the end, when promises will converge and even as entities separate they won’t, not really. Not entirely. 

And then there’s Ayda’s _favourite,_ ‘The Science of Soulmarks’ - because whilst there has always been information of what, she has never before been given a how or why. Of how the source within it can defy the very logic of the universe sometimes. Of why, sometimes, one’s magic can choose to channel through it as a source instead of via other casting methods. 

Well, really she still doesn’t have those answers. No one does. 

* * *

When it _does_ happen, there’s so much else going on that Ayda _actually misses it being said_. This has never happened in any of Ayda’s wonderings about her person. In every version her mind could conjure she has always known, immediately. And reacted accordingly. Instead, it happens when there are _people_ in her library, hustled together in a group. Talking over each other and hard to understand and on Leviathan but not pirates?

“Guys I think this is the creature Arthur Aguefort made for me!”

She hasn’t registered the words properly, but Ayda feels her body stop mid-motion as everything else carries on around her. The words burn lightly on her shoulder. 

“No.” Someone else mutters. Ayda finds herself agreeing. 

“No. This is a full person,” so does the wizard in their party. Ayda likes this one in particular. 

“Damn. It was kinda wishful thinking...” Her soulmate speaks again and Ayda can feel her whole body flush, before she finally comes back to herself and moves towards them. 

“Fig, you should feed it!” Another voice. Ayda pauses. _It_. She’s not impressed. 

“What are you? I- Excuse-” The wizard talks again, trying to make some sense of it but Ayda’s near them all now and she’s got to say something and-

“Do you offer this food to me as a gift?” Ayda finds herself asking, as the person who said her words holds out some food in their hand towards her. 

They stop immediately. Almost frozen in place, apart from their jaw which moves up and down, seemingly involuntary. Ayda waits for a response. 

“What?”

“Do you offer this food to me as a gift? Because I do not accept.”

The other voices continue around them, but neither of them notice. The wizard is trying to intervene still and part of Ayda wants to listen to her, but it’s like she’s unable to pay attention to anything else whilst this moment happens. All she can do is watch her soulmate before her, cataloguing every feature she can in this pause in time. 

Horns. A slight red tinge to their skin. Ayda guesses they’re a tiefling. Wonders which devil they’re associated with. Which level of hell she needs to read up on and become accustomed to. 

They still haven’t moved. 

She prompts, “I will be in no one’s debt as a wizard.” 

It’s only because Ayda is watching that she notices the flush over the tiefling’s visible skin. Brief and fleeting, but just like what she had experienced only seconds before. 

Has it only been seconds? Time barely has meaning on a normal day. Right now it feels like it’s stopped.

She thinks about saying something else, but before she can, their arm drops and they speak again, “What’s your name?”

Faint voices in the background say something about being rude. They all seem to think their companion has been too abrupt. Ayda disagrees. Straightforward is helpful.

Neither of them respond. 

“Ayda Aguefort.” She gives her full name, remembering a book on soulmarks. How the ritual is only complete once both have spoken their full names, “Who are you?”

“Figueroth.” 

The edge of the world still seems hazy. 

“Figueroth Faeth.”

And time starts to move again. A sudden jolt of noise and light and it’s overwhelming in its intensity as everything hits all their senses at once and Ayda doesn’t know how to respond in any other way than tensing all her muscles as her wings spread behind her. 

“What’s happening?” One of the voices is louder than the others, “What.. just… happened?”

“Erm… I think Fig just met her soulmate?”

* * *

In the end, none of the books do it justice. Ayda asks Figueroth to read them too - and is immeasurably pleased when she agrees to despite not _needing_ them like Ayda had. It’s one of the things Ayda finds herself learning quickly about her soulmate - that there are many things Fig knows innately that she will never know. With other people she’s found that that forces a distance between them that’s impossible for her to cross, but Fig doesn’t let that happen. There’s an open channel between them. No question too small. No question too _often_.

Of course there are many things Fig didn’t grow up with that she has to learn. Some from Ayda, but a lot that they can learn together. These ones are Ayda’s _favourite_. 

She gives her paramour a feather. Carefully chosen from the spot closest to her words, glowing with a mix of her own magic and the source of their bond. A promise for Fig to hold on to when she goes where Ayda cannot follow. Ayda knows how this is supposed to work. It’s a simple summoning: Fig will hold the feather and say her name, and Ayda will hear it and be able to appear by her side. 

But the first time Fig uses it Ayda is magically bound in the Forest of the Nightmare King - the restraints won’t let her follow the summoning. She cannot believe she’s let her down so quickly. Flaming tears roll down her cheeks and she’s physically _strong_ and she’s a _powerful_ wizard but she’s never felt as weak in her life. Kept awake for what feels like days with no spell casting ability.

Ayda assumes she’s starting to hallucinate the first time she hears Fig’s voice in her head, “It’s OK,” it says, and Ayda feels it reverberate through her entire body, “We’ll find you.”

“I miss you,” she replies instinctively. Feels it, somehow, through her words. Through the prick in her skin that once held a feather. 

“I miss you too,” she hears back and that’s… that’s not how the magic _works_. Ayda should only be able to hear her name, and nothing else. But Fig’s still talking to her, and apparently she can hear her replies and maybe, just maybe, this soulmate thing is as powerful as they say. 

She focuses on the feeling as Fig keeps talking. She’s holding the feather as she does and Ayda can tell where she is. Pinpointed by the summoning aspect of her magic. Well out of range for the normal message cantrip.

The feeling is the same as every conversation they’ve had so far. Every quiet moment and comfortable silence, every question asked and reassurance given. Ayda feels the bond spread from her shoulder to wrap around every part of her body. Breathes deeply as it happens hoping to encourage it along. To allow it to fully encompass her. To take control.

She feels it surge. The restraints break. 

Ayda Aguefort is summoned. 

**Author's Note:**

> i may write more of this in some capacity but WHO KNOWS. comments appreciated its been a loooong time since i've actually posted a fic. find me on twitter @[wakeupspoon](https://twitter.com/wakeupspoon)
> 
> also [here is some art](https://twitter.com/Jazzymandias/status/1281605407811743745) from my housemate!! excite


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